Cloning Celebs 101 : Conspiracy and Misconception

Today for my first post on medium, we’re talking good old sci-fi doppelgangers! That’s right, clones. But, what are the true vices of this impeditive act against nature? Is it possible that your favorite celeb is actually a clone? I’m here to clear up about some of the misconceptions and consequences of making another rapper when your label’s new star kicks the bucket.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

It was a few months ago now that my buddy and I first sat down and he told me about what had to be one of the dumbest conspiracies I had ever heard. Now I’ve been on the internet for a long time, I know a lot of what’s out there… or at least I thought so. But the YouTube conspirators have really outdone themselves this time! It seems that there are many people on the internet who are under the impression that the famous rap artist Gucci Mane has been replaced with a clone since his release from prison and is an entirely different person that the “Original Gucci”. Obviously, this is a huge crock of shit, and I’m out to prove it! I have also provided some links that I think will help serve as some proof for debunking this nonsense.

Time and Fitness

First things first…. Does anyone get how LONG it takes to make a clone?! Ever heard of Dolly the Sheep? The most famous cloned animal in history, unbeknownst to most took an astonishing 277 attempts to get right. From these 277, 29 early embryos came to fruition which were then implanted into 13 surrogate mothers, and of all these only 1 sheep survived, which was the well-known Dolly. But don’t think these sheep were something similar to an early term abortion, or failed fetus (if that’s somehow the way you choose to rationalize it). Some even went through birth however, died due to complications immediately outside the womb. Dolly wasn’t in best shape either once she did make it out. Born in 96 and euthanized in 02, Dolly live a short run of only 6 years, when the average Sheep’s lifespan is 11 or 12 years long. This was likely due to the fact that she was cloned from a 6 year old sheep, giving her chromosomes a shorter lifespan. Applying the same logic to any celebrity would mean genetic material from the original organism needs to be as young as possible for truly viable clones.

Putting this into context with Gucci, this would mean a sample of 300 cells would have been taken from a (hypothetical approximation here, mind you he’s 38) 20 year old Gucci Mane in 2000 when cloning was still “hyped”. By 2014, China had ‘reported’ 70–80% success rated of embryos which is quite high, but this still leaves a huge gap of technology. There are many different complications that could not have been easily resolved in the early days of cloning, which means the clone could be nowhere near the age of the original at this point in time. Cloning would have had to started long before these high success rates were claimed.

Genetic Expression

This one falls here and there in my opinion. To me, this is pretty damning when it comes to trying to get a clone of someone, look exactly like that person. But so people less versed in genetics quickly sweep this under the rug. There is a big misconception here that clones will look like a twin of their parent, however, this isn’t true. Since the somatic cell transfer used in traditional animal cloning requires 3 parents, it is not uncommon that the final outcome will not reflect the genes of the initial subject. As is the case with Dolly who was not “ not entirely identical to her genetic mother because the mitochondria, the power plants of the cell that are kept outside the nucleus, were inherited from Dolly’s egg donor mother.”.It is also often observed that identical twins can have different genetic expressions, know as fraternal twins. Because of these factors, more likely than not, any attempted clone of Gucci Mane would likely look at least noticeably different due to unique expression of similar genes. This is regardless of the age difference which would also be a strong telltale difference between a 20 year old clone and its counterpart.

Personality

Finally, the show stopper; composure and personality. It’s one thing to hire an actor, or teach someone to take over a persona. If there was someone who already looked like Gucci Mane, or could at least impersonate him to some degree, they would already be much better off than any clone. This is simply because of education and intelligence. How exactly do these theorist suggest this clone is being taught to impersonate Gucci Mane. Do people not understand that this would entail essentially re-educating and raising a brand new child, from infancy to adulthood in hopes that he adopts the exact personality and mannerisms? Even in regular twins, we see that genetics doesn’t have a direct layout or link to thought processes or social behavior, so why do these theorists allow clones this luxury? The worst example of a failure to perform in educating and raising a child is the famous example in psychology “Genie”, also known as the feral child. This poor girl was subject to severe abuse, neglect and isolation for well over a decade, to the point where she had no social skills whatsoever and was essentially a 13 year old with the mental capability of a 13 month old. Imagine if we were to fail like this in educating and teaching clones? The results would be completely egregious. To suggest we would be able to take a fresh clone and teach it exactly how to walk, talk, act and rap like Gucci would be much harder than either of the previous parts of the cloning process.

Final Thoughts

To wrap things up, the notion that anyone has the ability to create a clone as accurate as this conspiracy community suggests is quite far-fetched and more likely than not just impossible with modern cloning techniques and practices. Hopefully, this helped clarify a few things on cloning for some of you, and helps disprove this silly conspiracy for those in the community who might believe it. Who knows, maybe you even learned a thing or two.. if that’s so bad!

Let me know what you guys think! Could these celebs be clones? If not, could it be a real possibility one day? Maybe you’re a conspiracy buff and are waiting to tear me a new one, all welcomed! Let me hear from you!